
CW*'^'^ (i»'e'€'^^, "3o"bt;0n, 
"Boston, \?>5<^ 






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Book^^JI. 



ON PATRIOTISM. 



THE CONDITION, PROSPECTS, AND DUTIES 



AMERICAN PEOPLE. 



A SERMON 



DELIVERICD ON FAST DAY AT CHURCH GREEN, BOSTON. 



Rev. ORVILLE DEWKY, 



r A > r II. u "> K r ii k < h u k r ii . 



BOSTON: 
T I C; K N O R A N I> 1^' I E T - D S , 

M UCCC LIX. 



ON PATRIOTISM. 



THE CONDITION, PROSPECTS, AND DUTIES 



AMERICAN PEOPLE. 



A SEEMON 



DELIVERED ON FAST DAY AT CHURCH GREEN, BOSTON. 



Rev. ORVILLE DEWEY. 

PASTOK OF THE CHUECH. 



BOSTON: 
TICK NOR AND FIELDS 

M DCCC LIX. 



"J] 5- 



[The Congregation, at whose request this Sermon is printed, will ob- 
serve that a part of it was omitted in the delivery.] 



OOruell UuiT'', 
2 Fob 06 



BiVERSiDE, Cambridge: 

PEINTED BY H. 0. HOOQHION AND COMPANY. 



ts 



DISCOURSE. 



Psalm cxxii. 2, 7, and 8 verses. Our feet shall stand witliin thy gates, 
O Jerusalem. Peace be within thy walls and prosperity within thy 
palaces. For my brethren and companions' sakes, I will now say, 
peace be within thee. 

And Matthew xxiii. 37. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the 
prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often would I 
have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her 
chickens under her wings, and ye would not ! 

I CANNOT help noticing, as I pass, this extraordinary 
language of Christ. Poor, neglected, unknown, a simple 
teacher by the way-sides of Judea, witli no })osition in 
worldly eyes ; yet if he had been a departing king, 
mourning over his people, he could not have spoken more 
loftily. Is there not some strange, unborrowed, supernal 
majesty in this appeal ^ 

liut it is not this of which I am to speak now, or for 
which I have drawn my text from sacred records, several 
hundred years apart. It is ratlier to point out the abid- 
ing naturalness and beauty of the sentiment of patriotism. 
For thus it is, that from age to age are forever echoing, 
words of every language, which proclaim how dear is 
men's native land. From David, who sung that ancient 
song, to him who wept over Jerusalem ; and by all men 



who have felt the touches of the gentlest or of the grand- 
est humanity, thus have been repeated the words — songs, 
adjurations, or words of orators or historians, which pro- 
claim the sacredness of country and home. Whether we 
can exj)lain the sentiment or not, all men feel it, and no- 
body ever thought of defending it. There are sentiments 
indeed, that are more expansive. Our minds naturally 
range beyond all local boundaries. Science and philo- 
sophy are of no country. We belong to the world, it is 
true ; and there is a humanity that is as wide as the 
world. But, that tract of earth which I call my native 
soil, my native clime : that spot where my childhood 
grew, where my parents have lived, and my kindred shall 
live after me ; that is holy ground, set apart and severed 
from all the world beside ; and framed, ay, its very hills 
and valleys, its slopes and river-banks, moulded and 
framed into some mysterious ties and sympathies with 
my very life and being. And I must be able to tell, 
what never yet was told — to tell what this inmost life and 
being arc-, before I can interpret all that is w^ritten on this 
tablet of home and country ; before I can tell what home 
and country mean. 

But one thing is plain and palpable to my mind, that 
when I say " my country," I say what no amplification 
can add to ; that I say more than any epithets can de- 
scribe ; that I speak of that which is a part of me, and I 
of it ; that whatever touches it, touches me ; and who- 
ever assails it, assails me. It must be a dull man that 
feels neither pride nor shame for his native land. And 
if, from a disbanded nationality, I were wandering and 
fleeing, and the world should point the finger and say. 



•' alia ! ye had not the force nor sense nor virtue to Hve, 
or keep your horid. or hold together ; " that taunt would 
darken the very shadow and sorrow of exile. 

And yet, tliough as I firmly believe, there never was 
a country which men have had more reason to love and 
cherish, than we have to love and cherish this country ; 
yet here and among us, I think that the sentiment of 
patriotism is exposed to peculiar dangers. We have no 
uniting head. King or Queen, to whom the feeling of 
patriotic loyalty can attach itself. Our devotion is to an 
abstract Constitution ; and though it is a noble kind of 
devotion if it can be sustained ; yet if you were to cross 
to the father-land, you would be struck with the difference 
between our res])ect for the Constitution and the personal 
feeling which rises from a whole people to the fair majesty 
of England ; to a crown which is at once the top of honor, 
and set round with all the gems of private virtue. Then 
airain, there is nothing here to shield the head of the 
State, from every sort of violent and even scurrilous abuse. 
Everv newlv-chosen President seems to be set up, not as 
the image of the public order, but as a target to be shot 
at. The attack of course provokes defence ; but the 
defence is aj)t to take the tone of partizanship rather than 
of true and unbiased respect. All this must hurt the 
sentiment of patriotism. If the head of the family, the 
judg(! on the bench, the minister at the altar, were the 
subject of this perpetual wrangling, the very institutions 
they preside over — home, law, religion — must suffer 
indignity and dishonor from such treatment. In a free 
State, it may be said, can anything be done to prevent it % 
That 1 will consider soon ; at any rate I will consider 



whether we should not try to do something. But once 
more ; our freedom, with the unchecked opportunity it 
offers for the acquisition of gains, luxuries, comforts, and 
for the indulgence of all sorts of private opinions and 
preferences, is liable to run out into an individualism, a 
thinking and caring of each one only for himself, and a 
neglect of our political duties, which are in direct antag- 
onism with the love of country. There is a class of 
persons in this country, and I fear it is an increasing class, 
who, disgusted with politics, or fastidiously averse from 
free mingling with the people, or engrossed with business, 
are shrinking from their duties as citizens ; who refuse to 
take office, avoid as much as they can every species of 
service to the public, even that of sitting on juries, and 
who neglect to deposit their ballot at the polls. In fact, 
there is a disintegration of society here, that is hostile not 
only to patriotic, but even to fixed party sentiments. 

I have said thus much in general, with the view to open 
to you the subject on which I propose to address you this 
morning : and that is, our country, the love of our 
country, and the circumstances in our condition that are 
liable to weaken that great patriotic bond. I shall discuss a 
variety of questions ; but they will have at least this unity ; 
every question will come to this point, the love of our 
country, the right appreciation of it, the willing service 
which patriotism demands to be rendered to it ; nay, the 
filial consideration and loyalty with which we ought to 
speak of it. 

And first, let me say a word, of a reckless habit which 
we have, of speaking about the country. It may be re- 
garded as a small matter — speech, the talk of the street, 



the license of debate, in caucus or Congress — but I cannot 
think it so. Speech is the birth of opinion ; and opinion 
is the womb of the unborn future. \Yhat we thinly and 
say, the coming generation are hkely enough to do. Idle 
talk may resolve itself into dreadful fact. Let all men 
amon^- us. talk as some men do ; and a hurricane might 
})ass over the land with less harm, than that idle or angry 
breath. 

Nay, there are those who talk, as if they did not care 
how soon the worst came to pass. Disgusted with what 
they call the popular tendencies ; disgusted with the up- 
heaving of the ])opular mass, which they have never tried 
to direct or control ; disgusted with the insubordination 
and irreverence of the young ; disgusted altogether with 
our politics, they say — I have hcdrd them say, " let the 
worst come ; the sooner the better ; the worse the bet- 
ter ! " Now I confess that I can never hear this kind of 
talk, or anything approaching to it. without great pain. 
It discourages and saddens. me. It discourages every- 
body. It is not good to hear. It is not good to think or 
say. I know that there is often a more grave and con- 
siderate talking, about popular derelictions and public 
corruj)tion ; and though I cannot altogether gainsay the 
justice of it, I nmst say it seems to n)e there is too much 
of it — such as it is. Let us do something and not always 
talk. Or if we must talk, let it be to inquire what we 
can do. But it is too often cold, scornful, sarcastic, bitter 
talk that I hear. If it were more painful, there would be 
less of it. I sat by a couple of gentlemen lately, who 
were speaking at length, of bribery and corruption in 
Congress. I could not help saying, " this talk always 



makes me sick." So said one of them, " it makes me 
sick." But it went on. It always goes on. Fault find- 
ing is always eloquent ; and it is easy. If the object 
were to inquire how we can correct our own, or our peo- 
ple's errors, it were profitable. But if it be only to vent 
our spleen, it is perilous. We may say of it, in relation 
to our country, what Burns says in another connection, 
" it petrifies the feeling." 

And is it not a very strange thing 1 Was the like 
ever seen before ; a people so recklessly criticizing itself; 
smiting the government, the country, and the country's 
hope, in one suicidal blow ? This passes the ordinary 
limits of party animosity. Is there anything like it in 
England or France ? Was there in old Rome ? till its 
disastrous and declining days came, and seemed to justify 
the despair of Cicero, and the satire of Tacitus, But in 
its prosperous days were such words ever spoken 1 Why, 
I have heard a man standing in the high Senate of these 
United States — I have heard a senator say, " The presi- 
dent, and his cabinet, and both houses of congress, ought 
to be taken and pitched into the Potomac." If he had 
said such a thing in old Rome, he would himself have 
been pitched into the Tiber, and would have deserved it. 
And lately, in a speech in Congress, I hear the president 
called a " brigand ! " 

I take it upon me to rebuke such mad speaking. It 
should not have been possible to say or to hear such 
things in the Capitol. The man who undertook to say 
them, should have been drowned in hisses if it had been 
in a popular assembly, or if in the Senate, he should have 
been withered by its awful frown. I do not deny that 



there should be a strict and solemn inquisition into the 
ways of the government and of the nation ; but I do deny 
that such indecent and abusive language should be used. 
I will not admit that it is right ever to speak thus of our 
country, or its government. This sublime nationality ; 
this end)odied life of thirty millions of human souls ; this 
gathering under the awful wings of Providence, of six 
millions of families ; this majestic Rule that presides over 
them ; this struggling welfare and sorrow and hope of a 
great people, all bound up in the country's prosperity and 
progress ; this whole stupendous evolution of the fortunes 
of iiumanity, is it to be treated as lightlv as if it were a 
game of football, or as angrily, with as much j)assion 
and despite, and rash exclamation of oaths or curses, as 
if it were a pugilistic tight I How diderent was the 
s[)irit, how reverent, protective, and tender, with which 
Jesus looked upon his people ! And, indeed, what com- 
manding dignity apj)ears in his address to it ! And how 
evenly aiul ])erfe(tly was the balance held in him, between 
indignation and love ! The government was in bad 
hands enough ; and he was disowned, and rejected, and 
persecuted ; the Pharisees, the rulers, the Sanhedrim 
would not know him ; and yet sadly and indignantly as 
he speaks of all the wrong and evil there was in high 
places — yet no reckless satire or scorn ever fell from his 
lips ; but his great and loving heart burst out in melting 
expostulation, saying, '• O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou 
that killest the prophets and stonest them that are sent 
unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children 
even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, 
and ye would not ! " 



10 

But the true question, I may be told, were, whether 
the country and government deserve to be s])oken of with 
satire and scorn. This question concerns two very 
different things — the country and the government — and 
I shall treat of them separately. 

Does the government deserve it 1 Is it as bad as it is 
often said to be? Has it become more corrupt than it 
was in former days ? Has it declined from its pristine 
integrity 1 It may be true ; I am afraid it is true ; but 
it is to be remembered that our saying so does not prove 
it. Just as hard things have been said all along, of all the 
administrations, after the first ; and even that, even Wash- 
ington's, did not escape the most bitter reproaches. But 
just as hard, nay, harder things, were said of Jefferson 
and John Adams, and Madison and Monroe. Party 
animosity raged even more fiercely then, than it does now. 

I have had, for my part, some salutary experience upon 
this matter. I remember the time when I was taught by 
those around me, to regard Thomas Jefferson as the basest 
and most dissolute and unprincipled of men. And I do 
not doubt that there are some here, who could tell me, 
that John Adams was treated with scarcely more decorum. 
Well, I have lived to see these two men in their old age, 
treating one another with respectful consideration, writing 
amiable and friendly letters to one another ; and I have 
lived to see the time when they died on the same day — 
on that memorable fourth of July ; and then I heard the 
voice of loud lament and eulogy bursting forth from the 
whole country ; from all parties alike. It w^as a great 
lesson to me ; and I resolved that I would never listen to 
the words of party clamor any more. And how is it 



11 

noio, with Webster, and Clay, and Calhoun ! Why, it is 
coniinjT to be generally admitted, even by their opponents, 
that however they may have erred, however they may 
have acted under biases and prejudices, they loved their 
country ; and that in the circumstances in which they were 
placed, they did what they thought was right. Can any 
more be said of the integrity of statesmen than this \ 
And if there be men now standing high among us — I 
say not this or that man — hut if there be any who may 
meet with a similar reversal of the popular or party 
award, from the calm judgment of ])osterity, nay, and are 
likely enough, judging from the past, to do so, ought it 
not to stir a sacred caution in our minds, how we treat 
them ] Doubtless a government may grow more and 
more corrupt. Doubtless there are found, from time to 
time, in seats of power, bad men and bad magistrates. 
But it must be a sad thing, it nmst be a terrible thing, for 
us on mere j)arty and mistaken biases, to admit that the 
whole government of the country is sinking deeper and 
deeper in corruj)tion every year. Neither Statesmen, nor 
any other men, can fairly be expected to be better than we 
account them to be. This constant depreciating and vili- 
fying of the government, by one half of the people, tends 
to bring about the very state of things we lament over, 
and we may help to verify in misery and disgrace, the 
very prophecy of our haste and wratii. 

1 admit that in some respects, there is a descent from 
the dignity and perhaps virtue of former days. It is 
constantly said, that an inferior class of men is chosen to 
})ublic ortice ; and I will not deny it. Every nation 
perhaps, has its golden age ; or wliat seems to be such. 



12 

111 the early times of the Repubhc, the natural anxiety of 
the people, called the highest men into the public service. 
We have grown easy and careless. But this is not all. 
The representative principle was not at once developed 
here in its full force ; or rather it was not abused, as it is 
now. For a k»ng time there was a class of men, regarded 
as superior persons, to whom the people naturally looked 
as their leaders and legislators. That natural aristocracy 
is now to a certain extent disowned ; and the candidate 
for office is preferred perhaps, because he is not of that 
class. It is an unfortunate reaction. Then too, men of 
culture and refinement, are more and more shrinking and 
retiring from public life. It is an unfortunate tendency. 
The consequence of all this, is seen in a deterioration of 
manners, in our high places. We hear of rude and 
abusive personalities in debate, nay, of actual combats 
and blows in the halls of Congress ; of blows more 
wounding to the public heart, even than to the unworthy 
combatants. That rule in Congressional speeches which 
is called the " one hour rule," however necessary it may 
have been, and however just and reasonable, has undoubt- 
edly had the effect to lower the dignity of debate. 
Formerly, a few leading members discussed great ques- 
tions. Now, a much larger class are brought upon the 
floor; and the manners are worse. Then again, terrible 
questions are now brought forward, questions about the 
public lands, about annexation of territory, about slavery, 
which try the integrity, the virtue, the composure, the 
self-possession of public men, more than they were tried 
in former days. All this, I trust, is transitional, and will 
pass away. It does not prove to me that the natural 



13 

tendency of free sutirage and a free Constitution, un- 
der fair conditions, is to carry a governnient dovvii- 
^vard. 

But the more serious question is about the moral pro- 
gress or deterioration of the whole country. Government 
is, to the peoj)le, a mystery. The eye of the popular 
conscience is not fairly opened to it. Hence it conies to 
pass that things are abetted in ])ublic. which would not 
be tolerated in jirivate life. This separation between 
political and personal morality, which is doing so much 
mischief all over tlie world, it is to be hoped is temj)o- 
rary here, and will be searched into and stigmatized and 
stamped with utter reprobation, by a more eidightened 
public opinion. Men, I trust, will come to look at the 
persons who administer j)ul)]ic affairs, as keenly as they 
investigate the conduct of bank or railroad directors, nay, 
and will judge and act as stockholders, in the great na- 
tional interest, demanding-, irrespective of party biases, — 
demanding, I say, probity in the one as much as in the 
other, resolving to elect no man to j)ublic atlairs who is 
not an honest and good man. 

But the question about the national character is dis- 
embarrassed from these considerations ; and it cuts deeper. 
It is a momentous question certainly, and demands the 
gravest and most anxious study. It is a question for 
ourselves. It matters little comparatively what others 
say of us, though they are saying much on the other side, 
at the present moment. Nor is this surprising ; for the 
example of universal suffrage and of po})ular rule, which 
we have set up here, must of course be subjected to the 
severest scrutiny. Does it work well \ is the question. 



Theories are nothing- ; does it work well 1. And there is 
a ])arty in England which maintains that it does not. 
They say that everything is running down here. 

Is it true I A)'e we becoming a more unprincipled, 
vicious, dissolute people ? Are we less honest, less tem- 
perate, less benevolent, less reverent, less pure in man- 
ners and morals, than our predecessors were half a 
century ago ] Has our freedom run out into general 
license ? Or is there to be seen in the country at large, 
any tendency of the kind ? 

This is not the place to say how humble is the estimate 
which every right-minded people must form of its virtues ; 
or how deep is the sense, which every conscientious and 
thoughtful man must entertain of the national defects ; 
let the nation be which it will, American or French or 
English. Next to the burden which his own fiiults lay 
upon such a man, I believe, is the sad feeling he has, in 
contemplating the too common depravity and degradation 
around him, the baseness in high places and low, the 
drunkenness and debauchery, the sins, secret and open, 
which cov^er all the world with darkness, and fill it with 
tears. This is doubtless a w^ise direction of men's 
thoughts, whether in this country or any other country ; 
whether for a Fast Day or any other day. And I will 
not leave it to be inferred, from anything I shall say, 
that I am insensible to this humbling and painful contem- 
plation of our moral condition. Before a righteous con- 
science let every people bow low ; before accusers speak- 
ing in the interest of king-ship and aristocracy, and trying 
to discredit free governments, it must assume a diftierent 
attitude. 



15 

And the question here, let it be observed, is not how 
bad we are, but whether we are regularly and constantly 
growino;- worse ; whether we are going- down in national 
character ; and I deliberately say, I do not believe it ; 
I do not admit any such thing. Nay, it is rather ob- 
servable, that the men who are wont to speak the most 
bitterly of their country — I mean the ultra-reformers, 
the abolitionists, for instance, and conie-outers of all sorts 
— do nevertheless comfort themselves with the belief, 
that their labors have not been in vain ; that there is 
a better tone of sentiment and a better state of morals 
among us, than there was twenty years ago. 

But 1 do not deny that there are some bad indica- 
tions, ex})hcable, I think, however, on other grounds 
than that of a general tendency and sweep downwards. 
In the moral conchtion of a people, there will always 
be oscillations. There are hx-al circiuustances, aftecting 
moral conduct ; there are great movements of society ; 
there are reactions ; all writers on statistics know this, 
and the moral critic is bound to consider it. Thus, in 
the education of the young, obedience fails to be en- 
forced among us, to an extent p(>sitively alarming ; but 
I believe that it is a reaction from tlie ohl parental rigor ; 
and I think I alreadv see indications of return to whole- 
some discipline. Then again, we have heard much of 
social disorders ; of the bowie-knife and lynch-law on 
our Western border. This state of things is evidently 
owing to circumstances ; and, what is especially to be 
observed, this border line of semi-civilized life, instead 
of coming this way, as it should, according to the argu- 
ment of deterioration, is constantly retreating. So in our 



16 

cities, we have seen violence and sad misrule, enough to 
furnish a loud argument against us on the other side 
of the water, and loud admonition to ourselves. The 
truth is, we have been slowly learning-, how, under our 
popular system, to govern cities. And I think we are 
solving the problem. And again I say it is observable 
that the disturbance is retiring ; it is passing, so to say, 
along down our coast cities ; and in one after another 
it is controlled. We had mobs in Boston, New Bedford, 
Providence, New York. We have them no more. Dis- 
orders still prevail in Philadelphia, especially among the 
fire-engine companies — organizations which I hope will 
ere long be entirely sup})lanted by the use of steam- 
engines — and in Baltimore, from political causes. The 
truth is, and we are finding it out, that nothing but 
military force will hold in check the lower populace of 
our cities. With regard to misrule, to corruption in 
our city governments, the only remedy lies in agencies 
far more difficult to be called forth. For until the su- 
perior classes in our cities, the men of wealth and educa- 
tion, will consent to take the part which they ought to 
take, in our elections and in our municipal aliairs, there 
tvill be misrule and corru})tion, injuring the public in- 
terest, and shaming all good men. The evil is growing 
so monstrous, that I cannot help believing, it will drive 
us upon the obvious remedy. Then once more, it is said 
that crime is increasing in this country faster than pop- 
ulation. Is it strange that it should do so X Does it 
fairly indicate the general character of our people, when 
it is well known that so much of it is imported from 
foreign countries I Of tiie criminals convicted in our 



17 

Courts, — a large proportion come from abroad. In some 
instances, we are told, that the very penitentiaries and 
almshouses of the continent of Europe, have been emp- 
tied of their miserable tenants, to be shi])ped off to 
America. More than nine tenths of the paupers and 
beg^l'ars in our cities come from the Old World. Every- 
body knows how rare it is, to meet with a native Ameri- 
can mendicant. 

There is altogether a mode of reasoning- about this 
matter, or rather a way of representing things, that is 
unfair and unjust. The foreign journals get hold of here 
and there a fact, or of a gossiping story told by some 
traveller, and forthwith set it uj) as a ])lacard against a 
whole people. And they talk too, of mobs and po])ular 
outbreaks here. Have they none, in the cities of Europe I 
There has not been, I confidently say, since we have been 
a nation, such a stable and vmdisturbed order of society in 
the world, as (uir own. They say tauntingly, '* here is a 
voung people, a people in the flush of its morning, a 
j)eo|)le that ought to be in a condition of pristine virtue 
an»l innocence, and yet so full of vices and crimes, so 
" full of sores and ulcers," that its friends, as they look at 
it, must hang their heads in shame. The case is nof so. 
Society here is primarily an olfshoot from society in 
Euroj)e, in its average condition. xVnd then in later days, 
what shoals of the base and abandoned, have been floated 
to this country from foreign shores ! And what multi- 
tudes of ignorant and miserable paupers from abroad, have 
been cast uj)()n our hands, emploving, as we well know, 
all the benevolent energies of our cities ! I think we de- 
serve some better return than taunts for our care of them. 
3 



18 

It is indeed a very extraordinary condition of things. No 
people in the world, was ever before subjected to such a 
trial. Ah ! it is very easy to stand with folded hands on 
the opposite shore, and say, " what a bad plight you are 
111 ! 

As to the absolute question of our growing better or 
worse, there are many things to be considered. The lib- 
eralizing and enlightening of a people, have their perils ; we 
may welcome the general result, and yet look with anxiety 
at some of the processes and steps. The growth of wealth 
and luxury, is still more perilous ; but some extravagance 
in living, and some foolish fashions — late hours and lavish 
entertainments, though economically bad, and bad for 
health, may not be so bad as the case-hardened rigor of 
the old Puritan time, the stern face which it wore toward 
all the gayeties and pleasures of life, the mingled hypoc- 
risy and fear which it branded into the youthful mind. 
The notion that the more miserable a man is, and /^els, 
and looks, the better man he is ; and the more happy and 
gay, the worse — this wrong to Providence, this base 
crouching under its mighty dome of light and blessing — 
we may well be thankful that it is passing away. Changes 
which to the strict and conservative eye wear a bad as- 
pect, may not be for the worse. There is more liberality 
with regard to amusements ; but certainly the festal habits 
of our people have improved. There are not so many 
brutal fights on public days, as there were forty years 
ago ; there is not so much drunkenness at feasts, or town 
meetings, or military parades ; there is not so much pro- 
fane swearing. In fact, it is capable of demonstration, I 
believe, that fifty or eighty years ago, under the incrusta- 



19 

tions of the old Puritanism, viler streams of intemperance 
and licentiousness, were stealing- through our New Eng- 
land society, than can he found now. 

In short, I say that society, in its whole spirit, tone, 
and character, is improved. There is less intolerance, 
w hether religious, jiolitical, or social, than there was half 
a century ago. New views, whether with regard to the 
rights of men, or the sphere of woman, or the improve- 
ment of society, receive a more hospitable entertainment 
than they did then. Slander, rumiing its gossiping 
round, leaving its poisonous slaver wherever it winds ; I 
believe there is less of it than there was. Peoj)le have 
hooks, reviews, newspapers, lectures, concerts to occupy 
them ; and the neighbor's character oftener escaj)es. And 
in business, that system of preference-credits, that dis- 
iionorable evasion of fair and oj)en responsibility ; I ask 
you, if it is not in greater discredit, than it was twenty 
years ago. And in t^ue, I put it to any discerning^ and 
tbouiihtful man. who has reached middle life, whether he 
does not tiud society more just, tolerant. fraid<, and fear- 
less, little enough as there is of all this, than it was 
t\\ euty years ago. 

My subject in this discourse, is the love of country. 
We cannot love our country as a country should be loved, 
but it must be — I hope it will not be thought a weakness 
to say — with something of reverence and tenderness, with 
something of enthusiasm and })ride for it ; and we cannot 
hear it recklessly vilified or wrongfully accused, without 
remonstrance. It is to these ])oints therefore that I have 
now been speaking. 

In the same patriotic interest I am tempted to add a 
word or two on another j)oint. 



20 

In the all-criticizing" sj)irit of the time, there is a sort 
of incredible talk among us about national failure, about 
th(! sundering of the national bond, about the disuniting 
of these States ; these Federal States as we call them. 
The possibility of using such language arises in part, I 
think, from our calling them Federal States, — deriving 
our notion, or our noujenclature at least, from the old 
Colonial time. We are not confederated States as, till 
recently, the Swiss Cantons were. We are not a league, 
but a nation. We are one nation, as nmch as any other 
nation is. And what other nation in its palmy day, ever 
talked of disunion, as some among us do. " Dis — 
tvhat ? " — I could imagine a sensible man to say, who 
heard the word for the hrst time, and fancied he did not 
rightly hear — " disaffection, I can understand, distrust, 
disorder, but disunion ? You might as well talk of a 
disunion of the Alleghany mountains from one another. 
You might as well talk of the disunion of the Mississippi 
River from itself." Nay, and these are not only illustra- 
tions, but facts. Nature has made this North American 
empire moralhj indissoluble. How are you to cut the Mis- 
sissippi River in two, giving the southern half to one nation 
and the northern half to another ? — the southern dictating 
on what terms the northern should pass through. And 
our railroads fiist engirdling the whole empire, and our 
connnon interest and honor, and our jjatriotic memories, 
growing more venerable as they grow older, constantly 
bind us more strongly together. To be sure, I do not 
know what may be in the future ; but for the present 
time I hold it to be but patriotic policy and decency, to 
shut our ears against tliat miserable, paltry, party word. 



21 

disunion — spawn of factious discontent, and reckless free- 
dom. 

But do not the Southern States, from time to time, 
threaten to hreak oft" and go out of the Union ? jVot 
the southern Sfa/cs ; only onc^ and that only once. For 
the rest, some men at the South talk in this wild fashion ; 
that is all. But I do not deny tliat this is enough, 
and more tiian enough. I do not deny that the difficulty 
to which I now refer is serious enough. But is it in- 
suj)('ral)le ? It is the only question that threatens the 
national integrity. Is there no solution for it hut a vio- 
lent and hloody one "? 

I camiot. and I do not helieve it. But I confess that 
no shadow of mystery, that ever himg over the fairest 
fortunes of the human race, has seemed to me darker 
than this. Why it is, that the Almighty Providence has 
permitted this root of bitterness to he jilantcd in the soil 
of our R('])ul)lic. to troul)le the grandest political experi- 
ment that ever was made in human aftairs, no mortal eye 
can see ! It may be that since, in this fair domain and 
under this large freedom — since, I say, ])rosperity, wealth, 
and luxury were to start fortli on snch a career as they 
never ran before, one thing was permitted that should try 
men's souls ; that should hinnble our ])ride, that should 
task our ])atience. our calmness, our forbearance, our love 
of country to the utmost. 

\\ ould to Ciod that we could see it in this light, in- 
stead of throwing upon this debatable ground the burning 
coals of strife ! Instead of doing all that we can to pro- 
voke and vilify, and estrange one another, would that we 
could sit down togetiier as brethren, and as in the pres- 



OQ 



ence of God, and sincerely and solemnly ask ; what we can 
do 1 — what we ought to do '? What is our duty ] What 
is right ? What is best for all 1. Here is a people 
planted upon our territory ; a portion of the human 
race ; inferior to ourselves, if you please, but human ; 
and placed here without any fault of our own ; nay, 
placed here against the remonstrances of our fathers ; 
nay, more, so far as we are concerned, put, by an inscru- 
table Providence, into our hands; and now what is our 
duty to them^ What ought a just people to do for 
them 1 What ought a paternal and Christian govern- 
ment to do ] 

What ought we to do, I say ; for there is a question 
of the rights which is above every other question. I 
grieve to hear any high-minded man, swayed by party 
biases, speak lightly of this highest law. Without it, 
we are not men, but brutes. No men, nor nations can 
truly respect themselves, unless they bow in reverence 
before this sublime authority. What is the canonized 
virtue of ages ; what do we venerate in heroes and mar- 
tyrs ; what is it, without which there is left no worth nor 
dignity in the world, hut the right? Nations may rise 
and prosper ; generations may swee]) over the earth, and 
eloquent histories be written of them ; planets might roll, 
and stars wheel round their mighty centres — they are 
but dust and ashes, unless the law of the everlasting 
right reigns over them ! 

What, then, is it right for us to do with regard to this 
African people \ Emancipate them at once ; turn them 
adrift from our care, and take off' the hand of restraint ; 
let them be free as ourselves ; free to work or to be idle 



28 

as they please, free to roam hitlier and thither as tliey will, 
free to vote or to hear arms like other freemen ? / do 
not say so. I may he wrong, hnt that is not mv opinion. 
Certainly there is a profound conviction to the contrary, 
amonfj- the Southern people. 

What is the right then ? I answer, it is to consider 
and care for these people, so stranoely and sadly intrusted 
to us ; to consider and care for them as men. It is to 
educate, instruct, Christianize them. ^V]ly, we send mis- 
sions to the farthest heathen for that. It is to pass laws 
for the gradual anielioration of their condition. It is 
ultimately to emancipate them. With regard to the 
steps, I cannot go into detail. The prohlem will he one 
of innnense diliiculty and comj)lication, far greater than 
that whicii was involved in tlie treatment of the serfs in 
the Middle Ages. 

But this at least we can do. We can set up the rhjht 
to he the sovereign law in this whole proceeding. There 
is always a conflict, more or less, hetween natural rigjit 
and nmnicipal regulation. In the case of Slavery, that con- 
flict is carried to the extremest point of contradiction. It 
is in vain to dcnv it. The slave has a ])erfect right, if he 
can, to run awav. I never saw a man. North or South, 
who denied it. But the municij)al law steps in and stops 
him. It is a grievous solecism ; it is a sad conflict he- 
tween a man's rights and society's rights. But I cannot 
deny that society has a right to restrain actions, otherwise 
right, naturally right, which tend to its own destruction. 
I liave a natural right to eat and drink, and to huy and 
sell what I will — alcohol, or poison, or gunpowder — yet 
society claims the right, by license-laws, to restrain me. 



24< 

But still there is a Supreme Law which says that that 
contrariety shall he lessened, as fast as the general wel- 
fare and safety will permit. And to hold tliat extremest 
contradiction to natural right which slavery presents — to 
hold it, I say, fast clenched ; to repel the very idea that it 
ought to he lessened or loosened in any way ; to say that 
it is right and always shall be, to buy and sell men and 
their posterity after them forever ; and to demand that 
the common and supreme Government of the land shall, 
by its action, avouch this local and municipal bond to be 
altogether right, shall adopt, espouse, recognize it, shall 
enact into its laws, legitimate in its territories, this grand 
and world-condemned wrong to humanity ; this is what 
we never can consent to. 

Alas ! the time was, when the South mainly agreed 
with us in this ; when it admitted that slavery was an 
evil, and in its origin a wrong-, which must be corrected 
in due time. But it has been goaded l)y the violence of 
our disputes, into an opposite position. Is it not possible 
that it should take a step backward ; while we on our 
part, forsake the attitude of sectional antagonism, except 
in opinion, which we cannot help ; and that we should all 
agree, that slavery should be left just where it is; to be 
dealt with by those who alone have the charge and the 
responsibility ; just as if the Southern people were a for- 
eign nation ; our common, our general government, doing 
nothing for it, nor against it, but simply letting it alone ; 
simply keeping the bond of the Constitution ; no more 
discussing it in Congress, than if it were Russian serf- 
dom ; making no fugitive slave-laws, nor any other laws 
about it ; but simply, I repeat, letting it alone. If the 



25 

people of the South could consent to that, ceasing- to be 
j)ropagan (lists of their system, it would be doubtless a con- 
cession of municipal or pecuniary claim on their part, to 
moral principle ; but, would it not be a noble concession I 
Why, the whole progress of justice and freedom in the 
world has involved precisely that concession. Arbitrary 
kingships, aristocracies, customs, laws, rights of posses- 
sion, have always been giving way to the moral claim. 
The ordinance of '87 was precisely such a concession. 
Upon no other principle was slavery prohibited from going 
into the Northwest Territory. And when we at the 
North, refuse to open the New Territories to that sys- 
tem, it is, in my mind, mainly upon the same ground. 
If the slaves were ordinary property, if they were but 
horses or oxen, we should think it monstrous to say to 
their owners, " You shall not take them there." It is 
because they are men, because their presence there would 
injure the public interest — would injure the free white 
laborer ; because, in short, it is a thing that ought to be 
repressed, not extended, that we insist upon that conces- 
sion. Would it not be an honor to the Southern men to 
make it ? It would be returning to the ground with re- 
gard to this institution, which their fathers held. It 
would be to throw off from their shoulders, the responsi- 
bility for a system which they did not create, but have 
inherited. Now, alas ! they assume and avouch it to be 
their own, and to be right and good. The moral senti- 
ments of the world are against that stand. Can they 
hold it] 

I have thus far been engaged in the discussion of some 
questions concerning the treatment of our country, con- 

4 



26 

cerning its moral condition, and the one great danger 
to it. And here, perhaps, I ought to stop ; but I cannot 
leave the subject, without undertaking to say something 
of what a true patriotism demands of us ; what of duty, 
fealty, and affection. 

I must detain you with one preliminary remark, which 
goes through the whole subject. It is this ; and I would 
emphasize it : Universal civilized modern society is 
entering upon a political condition^ which devolves an 
entirely new charge and responsibility upon citizenship. 
Under absolute rule the subject had little to do with 
regard to government, but to submit to what was or- 
dained for him. There was no pulpit, nor press, nor 
caucus, nor ballot that could fairly speak out ; or that 
could exert any efficient influence upon public affairs. 
The popular conscience, instead of being educated to a 
sense of duty to the common weal, was crushed down by 
political injustice and oppression. Indeed, the spectacle 
of selfishness, seated on the throne and ruling in the court, 
too often taught the people only to be selfish, — to hoard 
their property or to tie it up in entails, and to pursue 
their pleasures, with little sense of what they owed to 
the country. The Grecian and Roman republics did, 
indeed, during their brief continuance, develope a vigor- 
ous love of country, but scarcely inculcated any duty to it, 
beyond that of fighting its battles. 

Now, it is not to be so, it must not be so, in our 
modern free States, if they are to work out any happy 
condition or high destiny. We are to make and keep 
and guard the State ; we, the people, are to do it, by 
personal care and fidelity. The machinery of the public 



£7 

order will not roll on smoothly and safely without our 
intervention ; nay, we are the machinery. The govern- 
ment cannot go on prosperously without us, we standing 
aloof and looking on ; nay, we are the government ! 

Here it is, I conceive, that our modern free commu- 
nities have fallen into an immense and perilous mistake. 
We have inherited our ideas of citizenship from former 
times and from a different order of society ; and they do 
not apply to our condition. Always and everywhere the 
more liberty there is, the more duties there are to be 
done. All along on the line of progression, from animal 
instinct or from the lowest point of barbarism, up to the 
highest intellectual power and freedom, it will be found 
that more and more depends upon the individual ; that 
more and more trusts are committed to him. The whole 
framework of government and society, becomes more and 
more complicated. The King of Dahomey, or the Em- 
peror of China, has but few laws ; and the people have 
nothinir to do but to obey them. We make the laws, 
multiply them, change them, execute them. No man 
stands alone, or can rightly stand apart. Every citizen 
is brouffht into immediate relations with the welfare of 
the State. Every citizen has duties to perform to the 
country. And every instrumentality, organ, and office, 
that has power to influence the public welfiire, should be 
subject to the same patriotic obligation. 

It should be recognized, first, in our schools and col- 
leges. There should be taught in them, as a distinct 
branch of education, the duties of citizenship. In our 
technical views of what constitutes education, this prac- 
tical and pressing interest has been strangely overlooked. 



28 

I am told that the schools of semi-barbarous Japan are 
ahead of us in this respect ; that the children- there are 
instructed in the actual duties of coming life. We want, 
in our schools, a Political Class-Book, more comprehen- 
sive and simple, too, than any I know of, — though an 
excellent work of the kind was written by Mr. William 
Sullivan, of this city, — a book that should instruct youth 
in the nature of our government, in the duties of citizens, 
of voters, jurors, magistrates, and legislators ; in the 
morals of politics and parties, in the principles upon 
which the vote should be given ; how much should be 
conceded to party organization, and what should never 
be conceded to it. And if there were a plain chapter or 
two on Logic, I think it would be well, — teaching the 
young something about the principles of right reasoning, 
— that of which our people know less than of almost any- 
thing else ; our politics, our caucuses, our newspapers, 
are about as full of one-sided and fallacious reasonings as 
they can hold. 

Next, the pulpit owes a duty to the country. We 
are constantly complaining that political morality is at a 
low ebb, and is sinking every day, lower and lower. 
What duty of the pulpit is plainer, than to speak of 
immorality, and especially of that which cuts most di- 
rectly and deeply into the heart of the common welfare, 
political immorality ? This wretched and ruinous dis- 
tinction between public and private virtue, between po- 
litical and personal integrity ; this permitting and ex- 
pecting men in official stations, to act on principles that 
would dishonor them in trade and at home; this giv- 
ing all fealty to party and none to the country ; whose 



m 

duty is it to strike at this stupendous demoralization, if it 
is not that of the preacher \ If, as a trustee of private 
funds, a man cannot cheat or embezzle without a black 
mark being set upon him, without being driven out from 
the society of all honest and honorable men ; shall a 
public trust be violated, a trust confided to a man by his 
fellow-citizens, a trusteeship for the whole country and 
for unborn generations ; shall it be violated and nothing 
be said of it, but that it is just what might be expected I 
Shall this huge dereliction be visited only with a sneer ; 
and that, more at the miserable state of the country, than 
at the men who dishonor it I 

The sacredness of every political trust ; the mvfidness 
of government — I speak advisedly ; the solemn signifi- 
cance, the binding and religious obligation of the oath, 
with which a man swears that he will " well and truly " 
serve his country ; what holy bond can be more properly 
insisted on, in the pulpit, than this] No "sanctitude of 
kings " ought to be more venerable than the magistracy 
of a free State. No holy conclave ought to be more 
sober and conscientious than a congress of men, chosen 
and set and bound, to think and act for the welfare of a 
great people. 

And why shall not the pulpit speak of and for the 
country, for the common weal I Why shall it not speak 
great and solemn words for patriotic duty, for sobriety 
and thoughtful ness, and moderation, and mutual love? 
Why shall it not plead for the country? I cannot help 
thinking that if all the pulpits in the land, were to do 
their iluty in this respect, the result would be marked and 
visible ; and we should not have all political action dese- 



30 

crated as it now, too often, is, cast out under the tramp- 
ling feet of party violence and recklessness, a game 
for the adroit, a butt for satire, rather than a bond for 
conscience and honor. If the clergy want texts they may 
find enough of them, in David and Isaiah, and in the 
books of the New Testament. 

The relation of the Press, to the country is sufficiently 
recognized ; and the only question is, about the use it 
shall make of its acknowledged and immense power. " I 
am glad that it is free ; and no abuse of which it is capa- 
ble would seem to me so odious as a government censor- 
ship ; as the ignominious bondage which is now imposed 
upon the Press in France. Where there is not free debate 
of every kind — free talk in the streets, free speech in 
public, free printing everywhere — there is no political 
freedom. 

Still I could wish that the press might consider for it- 
self^ what restrictions patriotism, justice, and honorable 
fair play, should lay upon it. A man should not feel 
more at liberty to put forth rash, hasty, and inconsiderate 
words, because he is an editor, cloaked in his closet, but 
less, incomparably less. The private man speaks to his 
neighbor ; the editor of a newspaper, to thousands. 

I have observed with pleasure, that two or three 
Conventions of Editors have been lately held in the 
country. I hope there will be more of them. Why 
should not discussions be entertained in such Conventions, 
on the principles upon which the Press should be con- 
ducted — on Editorial duties and rights, and inter-editorial 
courtesy and forbearance ? The clergy meet together to 
consider their duty and work : so do teachers of youth. 



31 

Why might not editors 1 Their position makes them 
teachers and guides to the people. And why, in fact, 
should there not be in our system of education, a distinct 
department of preparation for the editor's chair, as well 
as for the law, or medicine or theology ? 

It is every man's interest and duty, as far as possible, 
to hold just, large, well-proportioned views of things. 
Why should a man be willing to be one-sided, to be given 
over to partial and p^rty views of subjects, because he is 
an editor 1 Are we never to see in party prints any fair 
admission of what is right on the other side 1 And there 
is another thing still more vital to the editorial conscience 
and honor. There is a line which should never be 
crossed without sacred caution : it is the line beyond 
which lies the domain of private character. I do not 
mean of the private life only, but of a man's essential 
claims to rectitude of purpose. Personalities seldom 
serve any good end ; they subserve many bad passions. 
Measures may be freely and roughly handled ; motives 
may not. And the contest here is too unequal for hon- 
orable assault — except in very extreme cases. The man 
who commands a battery, should beware, for his honor, 
how he opens it upon an unarmed man. For the single 
man against such a force, is virtually unarmed. He has 
no fair chance. He cannot answer. He does not an- 
swer ; except in words, which if they become common, 
will alike degrade the press, and destroy its power — 
" Oh ! it isn't worth noticing ; it is only a newspaper ! " 

A free State, I repeat, unlike a des})otism, nmst engage 
the services of all its citizens, in their appropriate duties. 
A representative system requires of every man the vote. 



82 

Trial by jury, demands that every man should sit on the 
jury, when he is summoned to that service. And to fill 
a public office, when the expressed wish of the citizens 
designate the man, is scarcely short of an obligation. 
Our compact is, thus to serve one another, in the great 
interests of the Commonwealth. Travellers in this coun- 
try have made it a reproach against us, that we are all 
engaged in politics. We ought to be engaged in them ; 
not as petty politicians, but as men observant and thought- 
ful, and anxious for the common weal. Mr. Wordsworth, 
the great English poet, once said to an American visitor, 
with whom he had talked a long time on the English and 
American systems — " I am chiefly known to tlie world as 
a poet ; but I think that during my whole life, I have 
given ten hours' thought to politics for one to poetry." 
The visitor said in reply, " I am not surprised at that ; 
for the spirit of your poetry is the spirit of humanity ; 
and the grandest visible form of human interests,is politics." 
Was he not right \ And do not the most influential 
men and the highest minds among us, owe an especial 
duty to the country \ There are not a few men among 
us who seem to me strangely insensible to this duty. 
There are respectable persons that I hear say, and who 
seem to pride themselves in saying, that " they care 
nothing about politics." Business men in our cities avoid 
as much as they can, sitting on juries ; preferring to pay 
a fine for neglect. There is a conservatism among the 
more wealthy and cultivated classes, that looks with cold 
disdain or strange timidity upon those popular elements, 
that are working out the common weal or woe. Instead 
of stepping forward and taking their proper place, they 



38 

shrink into corners. This timidity of conservatism is in 
Anglo-Saxon men the strangest thing ! Let the popular 
wave arise, and they flee before it, like sheep before a pack 
of wolves. Let municipal questions agitate the j)eople, 
and violence be threatened ; antl they turn back and leave 
it for th(jse who vnlU to take the lead. They say that 
the j>ublic interests, nay and the very rights of property, 
are in peril ; and they do nothing but submit. Is there 
no English hardihood left among us for emergencies like 
these \ Is the fairest chance for self-government and 
national freedom, ever accorded to men, to be given over 
t(» j)ur(' faint-heartedness or scorn % 

I would not. however, be thought to speak with un- 
reasonable severity of these doubts and fears of conser- 
vatism. I would not make a bugbear of this distrust. I 
feel it in a degice mvself; every thinking man feels it. 
And it is not peculiar to us in this country. In every 
country thoughtful men feel it. In France, nay in Eng- 
land, do they not feel it? Do they not entertain the 
ipiestion. whether the ])resent order of things will hold; 
whether changes, whether revolutions may not come ^ 
Hut this is what I say. Is this distrust to be made an 
argument for deserting the post of duty, for giving up 
the cause of the country ? 

It is against this faint-heartedness that I contend; and 
I hope I may be pardoned for doing so pointedly and 
earnestly. I would use no unbecoming adjuration, but I 
would s;iy, if it were i)roi)er for me to say, to all conserva- 
tive doubters— for the sake of everything momentous and 
holy, Sirs, arouse you to your duties. Slavery excepted, 
1 know of nothing more ominous for the country than 



5 



<^Z. 



34. 

your own position in it. Why, I have been told tliat a 
distinguished foreigner who has spent a year or two 
among us, says he has hardly met a man in the higher 
society, who did not look with entire distrust to our future. 
If it be so, I will tell you whom he has met. He has 
met you^ the ultra-conservative men of the country. He 
could never have heard anything like this, from the great 
body of our intelligent people. But if the danger were 
rm/, I can tell you what would do more than anything 
else to avert it. Let thirty men that I could name in 
each of our cities, and a hundred in each State, go freely 
into the popular assemblies ; let them speak there ; let 
them speak wisely, manfully, kindly, liberally, and gener- 
ously — with a heart full and warm for their brother-men 
and for the common country ; and I believe the effect 
would be incalculable. 

Do you say it would be troublesome to vote and serve 
on juries, and to go and speak in popular assemblies ? 
But ivliat duty is not sometimes troublesome \ To rear 
a family, to provide for it, to build up an estate, is 
troublesome. The student's, the lawyer's, the physician's 
life has its troubles, its disagreeable things to do. The 
soldier must stand sentinel, stand in the trendies, stand 
in the imminent deadly breach ; and ill should we think 
of him, if he lay in his luxurious tent when hardship and 
danger demanded him. And are the duties that we owe 
to the whole embodied life of the Republic, to be exempted 
from the obligation that presses everywhere else \ No, 
I firmly say it ; we must march up to the breach when 
duty or danger to our country calls ; we, in the whole 
country, we, in cities. All the respectability, influence, 



85 

wealth, learning-, culture in our cities, should be seen at 
the polls, and often at the primary meetings. If in timid- 
ity, in cowardice, in fastidiousness or scorn, they stand 
back and give jjlace to ignorance, brutality, and violence, 
whose then will the fault be, if the lower elements get 
u[)permost ? Troublesome, indeed ! Let me tell you 
that something more troublesome will come ; ay, trouble 
that we think little of now, if we neglect to guard the 
house. Troublesome, forsooth ! Where are the courage 
and manliness and self-sacrifice of honest and honorable 
men ^ For I say, if we could truly understand it, that 
amidst ease, and abundance, and luxury, there is as much 
self-sacrifice recjuired to keep all right and safe, as there 
is in scenes of revolution and blood. We know, that if 
every man in this country will do his duty, all will go 
well. And of whom may we demand that they do their 
duty, if not of those who have, or conceive that they have, 
the most at stake ? And what if such a man were stricken 
down, by ])opular violence — stricken down at the polls — 
ay. murdered, martyred! It would be a glorious martyr- 
dom. It would do more to appall the lawless and arouse 
the negligent, than a whole life could do. 

l^ut, says some learned or fastidious and delicate 
gentleman, " what can I do in the primary assemblies ? 
They wont hear me." There it is again — that mistimed 
timidity or morbid self-esteem. But I say they ?i'ill hear. 
They want to hear from those whom they involuntarily 
respect as men of wealth, education, and influence. And 
they must hear from them. Republics must be brother- 
hoods. Free communities, free cities cannot go on well, 
if the most influential persons in them retire in disgust 



36 

and disdain from all participation in their affairs. The 
English aristocracy are beginning- to feel this ; they are 
learning that" Apiaroi — the best — must mean something 
more than fashionable idlers or mere cultivators of their 
estates ; and they are more and more mingling with the 
people, at least in their social, municipal and political 
affairs and interests. They are living more for the public 
and for the common weal, than they once did. Nothing 
else can justify their position, in an intelligent and increas- 
ingly free community. And nothing else can make any 
similar position right, in a free country. This is the price 
that a guarded liberty must pay : a guarded liberty I say, 
and none other can be kept, or be long worth keeping. 
This is the price, I believe, and therefore I insist upon it 
— this care, this common interest, this intervention in 
affairs, of the highest men among us, this friendly and 
fraternal mingling together of all the elements that con- 
stitute a free nationality. 

A free nationality, I say ; and I believe that we have 
yet to come to a new idea of what it is ; of what our 
own is ; of what every nationality is. It is God's ordi- 
nance. Men cannot work out the ends for which they 
are placed on earth, without being gathered into com- 
munities under the protection of government. This 
national bond is God's ordinance ; and it must have 
man's respect, reverence, and cherishing affection. 

We are not — and we ought not — to care for England 
or for France, as we do for our own country. Here the 
God of Nations has set us down ; and drawn about us 
the bonds of the public order ; and girdled us round 
with ocean barriers and chains of ocean lakes ; and 



37 

spread out this realm of day-dawn and sunset, and 
healthy climates, and mighty forests, and glorious prairies, 
long kept and hid from other lands by the waves and 
storms of the mighty deep— this realm richer than the 
Hesperides, vaster than Imperial Rome, — to be the em- 
pire of a great people. 

We love our country. We are proud of it. We 
know that no nation on earth ever set out on such a 
career before. It had its Icfjinnmrjs in the most advanced 
civilization in the world ; and other good elements have 
mingled and become blended with it. We love our 
country. Let us love it. Let us be proud of it. I will 
listen to any high patriotic adjuration, to any solemn 
admonition ; but I will not Ihtcn to any cold and blight- 
ing disparagement. Not only has there been a more 
rapid growth in wealth and population here, than any- 
where else, but more inventions of the subtle intellect 
have originated here than in any other country ; more 
churches and schools and colleges have been built ; more 
books and newspapers and journals have been printed and 
read ; and more enterprises have been undertaken here, for 
the reform of morals, for the relief of the poor, and the 
fallen, and the insane, for the spread of religion at home 
and abroad. And shall any clique of croakers or fanatics 
stand before this mighty peoj)le and point the finger and 
say, " Aha ! go down ! go to pieces ! you are going 
down ; you are not worthy to live ! " 

No ! wide let j)atriotic honor and trust and hope beat, 
from North to South, from East to West; like the 
mighty ocean waves that engirdle us ; like the fresh 
breezes that sweep through our valleys. For this reason 



38 

— for the culture of patriotic sentiments, I am glad to 
witness that enterprise which is taken up by our whole 
people, for setting apart and consecrating the residence of 
the Father of his country, to be his perpetual memorial. 
I am glad that it is to be done by individual contributions 
rather than by act of Congress. I am glad that efforts 
and appeals of every kind, that journals, and speeches, 
and eloquent orations have gone forth, to stir the national 
heart. 

To gather up, and fix, and perpetuate through all time 
the great memories of our national life — what place so 
fit as Mount Vernon ! It may be to this country, I 
will not say what Versailles is to France ; for the volup- 
tuous and selfish monarch who built it, stamped upon it 
quite another character, and did more, in fact, to bring 
down ruin upon the monarchy than ever was done by 
any other single action ; but it may be what the last 
king of France desired to make of Versailles, a grand 
historical monument. Tiie gardens of Versailles, about 
as large as the estate of Mount Vernon, are laid out with 
walks through avenues of trees, with many a turn and 
winding into bowers and boskets, adorned with sheets 
and falls of water, and filled with fountains. The palace 
walls are hung with historical pictures of the great men 
and times of France. Why may not Mount Vernon be- 
come in time the more than Versailles of America — its 
tangled woods cleared up, its barren fields covered with 
living verdure, and pathways opened all around and 
through its ample domain, for the generations of all com- 
ing time to walk in — drawn thither by attractions of 
landscape-art, and historic pictures and statuary, and 



39 

touched by historic memories surely not less gnind and 
inspiring than those of any people that ever lived. 

Yes, and above all, let the great name of Washington 
rise ; of him who did more than any man to make us a 
people, and whose name more than any man's binds us 
together ; of him whom the great poets, and orators, and 
historians of all countries unite to-day, to proclaim the 
most perfect model of heroic patriotism ; of him who 
served us without recompense, who governed without 
ostentation, and whose sway was that of patience, pro- 
bity, wisdom and modesty ; of him whose imperturbable 
dignity controlled officers and soldiers alike ; whose nat- 
ural vehemence was chastened by the solemnity of his 
mission ; and whose calmest words thrilled the hearts of 
men like electric fire ; of him who was a tower of strength 
in the day of our weakness, and a pillar of fire in the 
darkness and storm ; and who, had an imperial diadem 
been offered him, in the day of his victory, would not 
have reluctantly declined it, as Ctesar did, but would have 
trampled it under foot as a painted bawble ; of him, 
whom, when he died, a weeping nation declared to be 
" first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his 
countrymen." 



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